Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Knowing All About Cost Segregation

By Christa Jarvis


When it comes to taxation, there are a lot of rules and regulation under the law that one would have to follow. Of course this does not mean that there are no loopholes that one can make use of in order to lessen taxes under the law legally. If one is an owner of a building, there is one concept known as cost segregation that he can use in order to significantly lessen taxes.

Now in a nutshell, it is the process of segregating personal property assets that are considered real property assets from personal assets. This is a requirement that is done for tax reporting purposes. This is usually done by expert taxation accountants who are good in handling property assets.

Now if one would go through this process, most people would ask exactly what he will do. Well the main goal of this process is to simply decrease the depreciation time for the property assets. This in turn would actually help lessen the taxes of the property owner.

Now property costs would mean the improvements that are done on to the land, the costs of construction, and of course the additional decorations and such. Now the thing that the experts would do would be to first determine the costs. When they have done this, then they will recording this in the books of the owner.

Just to give one an idea of what can be depreciated, basically building costs can be depreciated over a 27.5 or a 39 year period. Now other costs like exterior improvements and adding of utilities and decorations can be depreciated over five, seven, or fifteen years. These are just some costs that can have accelerated depreciation but there are still more that one can be able to identify if he is an expert.

Now in order to know about these costs, the expert would first have to work together with the engineer. Now it is crucial that he would go over the blueprints so that he will know some of the things that can be taken care of. Once he has done this, then he can already have a clear idea of the things that he would have to do.

Of course in order to do this, he will have to have at least the basic knowledge of building engineering so that he will know exactly what he is doing. Now some of the things that he would have to do would be to handle the walls, ceilings, and the floors. Of course he may also take care of the utilities just like the water, the electricity, and of course the telecommunications lines.

Now the last thing to do would be to analyze all the data that was collected in this building and create a tax report. Now if one would do this, then his taxes will definitely be lessened because of depreciation. Now one of the benefits that he will derive from this aside from lower taxes would be the opportunity for him to discover more real estate liabilities.




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